He only meant to joke, but she sprang up, pulled his whiskers and said, “Go to the stream and wash the shirts, take the broom and sweep the house, then go and sit by the cradle and rock the child, cook the supper and grill and bake the cakes.” The man wanted to answer, “What are you talking about, woman? That is not a man’s work.” Then he looked at her, and he froze cold and his tongue clave to his throat. So he got the washing together, baked the cakes, swept the cottage, and was no good for anything. One year went by, and a second, and the good youth got rather weary of the yoke. But what on earth was he to do? He had married and he had tied himself for all eternity, and, may-be, his entire life would go by in this misery. From sheer wretchedness he contrived himself this contrivance. In the forest there was a deep pit of which neither end nor bottom could be seen. So he took and closed it up on the top with stakes, and strewed it over with straw. Then he came up to his wife: “My dear wife, you don’t know that there is a treasure in the forest. It simply moans and groans with gold, and will not give itself up to me. It said, ‘Send for your wife.’” “Ha, ha! let us go: I will take it, and you say nothing about it.” So they went into the wood. “Sssh, woman, that is hollow ground out of which the treasure comes forth.” “Oh, what a fool you are of a peasant, frightened of everything! This is how I run up to it.” So she ran up to the straw and was precipitated into the pit. “Now, off you go,” said the peasant; “I am now going to have a rest.” So he had a rest for a month, and a second month, but he soon became melancholy without his squint-eyed wife. So he went into the forest, and he went into the field, and he went to the river, and he could only think of her. “Possibly by now she has become quiet. Possibly I will take her out again.” So he took a withy, let it into the ground, and he listened: she was sitting there. He drew it up, looked at it very near, looked very carefully, and in the basket there was a little devil sitting. At this the peasant was frightened, and almost let the cord fall out of his hands. Then the little devil begged him and cried in his ear: “Do let me go, peasant. Your wife has been torturing and oppressing us. Tell me what to do: I will be your faithful servant. I will this very instant run into the _boyárs’_ palace; I will in an instant cook the grill; by day and night I will knock and drive away the _boyárs_. You are to declare yourself a doctor to go and to call on me. I will leap up on the spot and vanish. Now, go and dig; shovel up your money.”